Bob Vetrone Jr.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012, 2:48 AM

Only six goaltenders in Flyers' history have recorded more shutouts in a season than the five Ilya Bryzgalov suddenly has on his slate.
The Flyers' all-time leaders for shutouts in one season (combined shutouts not included in totals):
Goaltender
Season
GP
Sho
Bernie Parent
1973-74...
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Bob Vetrone Jr.

Monday, March 12, 2012, 2:21 AM

The first thing that stuck us as CBS rolled (muddled?) through the NCAA Selection Show was how title-heavy the South Region was.
Consider poor Kentucky. If the Wildcats can manage to get by their first-round opponent (TBD), they may get (in order): the defending champion (Connecticut), then a five-time...
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Bob Vetrone Jr.

Thursday, March 8, 2012, 4:13 AM

Philadelphia and Boston has a long professional basketball relationship — 512 games (regular season and playoffs) dating back to the first meeting between the Warriors and the Celtics on Nov. 26, 1946.
Only once in that long history, did a Philly team beat Boston by a larger margin than by the...
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Bob Vetrone Jr.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012, 2:18 AM

The Flyers are now 4-0-1 in games when they retire a jersey number.
More interestingly, each of the first four times they retired a number (below), one of the team's active players in that game would eventually have his number retired. We'll see how that plays out.
Notable: Parent actually wore No...
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Bob Vetrone Jr.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012, 2:00 AM

Since Ryan Howard will be out for a while (we say "Heal up good, big guy, and see you after the All-Star Break"), it will be interesting to see who plays first base until he is able to return and fills in for him as he eases back into the lineup.
We found nine players among the Phillies' 40-man roster...
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Bob Vetrone Jr.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012, 1:45 AM

Here's how Conference Title games during Championship Week are shaping up. Results and schedule below.
Notable: Four of 11 conference title games have gone to overtime ... South Dakota State won the Summit League with an overtime win. Not much special there, except their women's team had won their...
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Bob Vetrone Jr.

Monday, March 5, 2012, 12:41 AM

Numbers have always done a lot for us; now we’re going to let them do something for people who really matter. And if you join us, you may never look at the NCAA Tournament the same way again.
With Mrs. BoopStats’ approval, we have decided to make a donation to the Philadelphia chapter...
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Boop – who goes by Bob Vetrone Jr. when he is undercover or paying bills – has been at the Daily News since 1982, after working for five years at the Philadelphia Bulletin up to its closing. Along with helping to build the sports scoreboards most nights, he has had great input into the papers’ special sports pullouts – March Madness, Broad Street Run, Record Breakers, Greatest Moments – as well as its day-to-day, award-winning event coverage.

A 1980 graduate of North Catholic, he took some evening college courses. Those lasted right up until the first conflict with a Big 5 doubleheader.

His favorite books growing up were the NBA Guide and the Baseball Encyclopedia, which was, for all intents and purposes, the Internet before there was an Internet.

He has been immersed in sports statistics since the early 70s, when his father (long-time sports writer, broadcaster and the Daily News’ Buck The Bartender), would take him into the Bulletin newsroom overnight in the summer and let him update the Phillies statistics in a little, black spiral notebook. But things have changed tremendously in the decades since … He now uses a big, black spiral notebook.